Great Cathedral (Orléans Cathedral)

The front of Orléans Cathedral looks medieval, yet the stone Utrillo painted here was fairly recent. In 1568, during the Wars of Religion, Protestants blew up the pillars of the crossing. King Henri IV laid the first stone of the rebuilding in 1601, and the west front with its two towers was begun only in 1739 and finished in 1829. Utrillo left this picture unfinished in 1913, so it shows how he worked. The pale ground layer is still visible around the building. A straight line at the bottom sets the façade on its base like a model on a stand, and some shapes were drawn with ruler and compass. He mixed glue, plaster and cement into his paint for his chalky whites, adding greys and browns little by little. His painted signature was later cleaned off and written over in ink.